1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular to an apparatus for stabilizing the convergence of an adaptive line equalizer in the presence of highly correlated line data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Adaptive line equalizers are used in modern serial input/output (I/O) links which interconnect high speed integrated circuit devices. These devices include network adapters, graphic adapters and central processors in current computing and networking systems. The line drivers and line receivers for these systems both may contain automatically adjusted, or adapted, line equalization capability. Adaptive equalization typically permits operation at data rates from 5 gigabits per second to 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) and more. A serial I/O transceiver system employing an adaptive line equalization system may typically be used within a system to facilitate communication between many of the high speed components.
A typical application of adaptive equalization comprises a pair of transmitter and receiver devices comprising a continuous-time equalizer (CTE) and a decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) in the receiver, and a feed-forward equalizer (FFE) in the transmitter. Any combination of these equalizers may be adapted dynamically by an adaptive equalization process. In particular, high performance transceiver systems may employ continuous “blind” adaptive adjustment of these line equalizers. The equalizer settings of these transceiver systems are updated by examining payload data on the line rather than using a configured value.